Desperate Measures
by minorshan
Summary: Henry can't take it anymore. Weren't people supposed to learn to keep their hands to themselves on the first day of kindergarten? Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if his birthday didn't qualify, he didn't know what did. Just a silly, little oneshot fluff piece that's been knocking around my head since I noticed a certain fanfic cliche. A dash of Snow/Henry bonding


There were a lot of strange things about Storybrooke. He had hoped that the breaking of the curse would have brought an end to this particular idiosyncrasy of its townsfolk, but it seemed to have done the opposite. Where before only the people close to him felt they could invade his space in that particularly annoying way, he'd remained relatively invisible to everyone else. He should have known it had nothing to do with the curse when he'd found Emma. Maybe it was because she was uncomfortable with hugs, but it turned out that she was a worse and more frequent offender than even his mom, the mayor. Really, the only one worse than Emma was Gepetto. Probably had something to do with not having his own son there.

But when the curse had broken, he was even more famous than he'd been as the mayor's son - and a thousand times less intimidating to approach as the son of the Savior. Suddenly he understood why some characters in his other books would say it as better to be feared than loved. They were mostly villains though, and no way would he become one of them. So he'd resigned himself to putting up with it. When he had confided in Snow, his doting grandma, about how annoying he found it, she'd told him about how when she was pregnant her belly seemed to have become public property, and how she could sympathize. It didn't make it any less annoying but it was nice to know his feelings weren't wrong. It was just more proof that while his mom took after her father, everyone said that Henry was most like Snow. He'd grown up dreaming of being like his dragon-slaying prince of a grandpa, but he was surprised at how pleased the comparison made him. She kicked just as much butt, and even as Mary Margaret, had gotten him in a way no one else did. It's why he thought she'd have a solution and not just sympathy, but _her_ condition had been temporary. Once she wasn't pregnant anymore, the target of so many hands gone, no one was interested in her belly. Well, that and it was the first days of the curse, and not even she remembered being pregnant.

It was that afternoon, as he was dreading what would certainly be a particularly daunting gauntlet, his birthday party, that he'd finally realized a solution to his problem. He'd been thinking about how Snow had been lucky - she'd only had to deal with it for a few months. He'd been dealing with his headache for as long as he could remember. And that's when he realized it.

Eliminate the target.

His family wouldn't like it, but he didn't care. He was going to take back his life - and he only had ten minutes in which to pull it off. He'd stayed at home while Emma and Snow picked up his cake, and his Gramps had gone ahead to the party to prepare his 'surprise' for Henry. Elated as his revelation, the boy leapt to his feet and dashed into the bathroom. He pawed through the myriad of hot irons and other female beauty devices that accumulated when two women shared one bathroom, in search for his Gramps' single device. "Eureka!" he cried aloud finding it.

The buzz of the electric clippers coming to life had never been so exciting. He adjusted the razor level down to three and took a deep breath before raising it to his head and into the mop of hair atop it. His grin widened as pass by pass chunks of hair fell, dappling the ground and countertop. He examined himself when he'd shaved all but the middle strip down his scalp, laughing at the idea of showing up to his birthday party with a mohawk. No one could call him slugger or champ with a mohawk. It was a passing fantasy, though, and soon that hair was gone as well.

He examined himself in the mirror and was pleased that his skull hadn't turned out to be lumpy or weird like you saw on some bald guys. It was strange to be free of that mane. His head felt oddly lighter and he could feel the air on his scalp as it went through the quarter-inch long stalks of hair left on his head. No one was tousling his hair today. No one was going to tousle his hair _ever again_.

The sensation of being free from the oceans of unwashed hands on his head was positively elating. For the 20 seconds before he heard his mom's voice and his stomach dropped out. "Henry!" he heard her cry out behind her.

He flipped around, the clippers forgotten, clattered to the ground, shutting themselves off in the process. But the outrage he expected isn't there. Emma looked puzzled, while Snow behind her looked exasperated. With the amount of time they'd spent flipping his hair this way and that, he'd expected them to be far more angry that he'd taken away the plaything that was his mop top than they were.

Emma cocked her head to one side. "Kid, if you wanted a haircut you could have just said so... " She then shrugged and turned on her heel, likely to deposit the cake still in her hands. "You did a pretty good job though," she threw over her shoulder. "Nice, even buzz. Got any other hidden talents?"

Snow still stood there staring. "Emma!" she finally cried out. He was surprised his Grams was reacting worse, given that she knew how much the hair tousling thing annoyed him.

"What?"

Snow gestured back at Henry wildly. "_The mess!"_ she exclaimed. Okay, maybe that look on her face wasn't about his freshly shaved dome. "Henry... you're a smarter boy than this - why didn't you lay down some towels to catch all that hair?!" She'd always been a neat freak.

"Relax," he heard Emma reply. "He just finished. I'm sure he'll sweep it up right away. Right, Henry?"

Henry nodded dumbly. "Uh, yeah."

"See?" Emma added, smartly.

Snow shook her head. "Next time, try and think ahead, okay?" Henry just nodded again as he went to retrieve a broom. As he knelt, sweeping up his hair, he found himself oddly disappointed. Weren't they going to miss playfully tossing his hair about?

It was about 10 minutes before he realized his mistake. Only 10 blissful moments wherein he thought his plan a great success. How wrong he was.

He had been standing, watching Snow write 'Happy 11th Birthday' on his 'Avengers' theme cake when he felt it. A hand. On his head. He recognized the way it wiggled across that it belonged to his mother. A pause, and he allowed himself to believe she'd realized there was nothing there to tousle. And she had. Movement resumed, this time in the pattern of a swirl, then back again.

Emma chuckled. "Your head feels like the tongue of a kitten I had once! But softer."

"Really?" Snow replied and looked up at her daughter's observation.

An apologetic look later, Emma's hand was replaced by Snow's slightly smaller and softer hand, which palmed the back of his skull. She shook her head. "Nah. A freshly shorn sheep. Exactly the same."

Emma shrugged. "I wouldn't know, having not grown up in the middle ages," she teased.

"It's been a while, but I'm sure of it," replied Snow.

"Good memory for someone who's older than the printing press," joked Emma. Snow and Charming being older than dirt had been a running gag since the curse had been broken.

Snow rolled her eyes. "I refuse to believe I need to explain the difference between coming from a realm that _resembled_ the medieval Europe and actually _coming _from the dark ages."

Emma nodded. "It's okay. Everyone loses the ability to believe in the fantastic when they get old."

Their banter had blessedly distracted them from Henry's head, so he took the opportunity to beat a hasty retreat to the couch. He hesitantly brought a hand up to feel his shorn scalp, something he hadn't bothered to do yet. His palm only needed to make one lap before he groaned. It felt funny, and almost tickled his hand upon touching it. And even _he_ was having fun feeling the texture.

He was screwed.

The party had been awesome - but then, how couldn't it have been? He didn't have a magician at his party. He had real live magic users. Who needed a jumping castle when Tinkerbell provides enough pixie dust to allow all the kids to fly for an hour. But, he had also never have so many people rub his head. Or debate what it felt like. He'd been compared to a freshly cut lawn, sandpaper, even the legs of a woman who'd given up on the dating scene. That last one had been Red. Never had he so desperately wanted to get out of a conversation as that one. Until Granny shot back that it was more like the underarm of the same woman. Then he'd _really_ understood what desperation was.

That night, as he lay in bed, he forwent his usual bedtime reading to mull over his situation without being distracted by people petting him like he was a cat. He wondered if he could get his hands on a wig, deciding it was a shame Hook was a bad guy. Surely he knew the best place to get one. And advice on making sure it didn't fall off. He put the plan aside as unfeasible.

Just as he was about to doze off the answer came to Henry. He realized that what his head was missing was a speedbump. Like those cement cylinders that blocked cars from driving onto pedestrian-only street. It would take some time but in a few months he'd be able to execute the revised version of Operation Private Property. His mistake was clear to him.

'_I should have left the mohawk.'_

**Author's Note: **Just my little take on how Henry would react if people were constantly tousling his hair like they do it even the best fics. Once I noticed it, it drove me insane enough to avoid it if at all possible in my stories. Now that I've pointed it out, you won't be able to not notice it. At least I hope so. Misery loves company. You're welcome. ;)


End file.
